The Doctor Will See You Now
by SuperMiss
Summary: Now Donna knows about the regeneration trick, she knows he grew another hand. But there is one thing only Martha has witnessed. ONE SHOT


_Title_: The Doctor Will See You Now  
_Author_: nao-asakura, aka SuperMiss.  
_Beta_ : MrssJW and adrienne.hope; thanks a lot.  
_Genre_: somewhere between angst and whump (H/C).  
_Disclaimer: _the Doctor and his entire universe are not mine_.  
__Note_: Set between 4x06, _The Doctor's Daughter_, and 4x07, _The Unicorn and the Wasp_.  
Spoilers for S3, no big spoiler for S4 -- except for the presence of Martha and Donna.

_Summary_: Now Donna knows about the regeneration trick, she knows he grew another hand. But there is one thing only Martha has witnessed.

-

_"Close the door, turn off the power, shut your mind  
__You tell us your soul is a-leaking  
__And it needs a fixing."  
_Stephen Stills.

-

They got out of the TARDIS, like so many times before, and he was talking about the planet history, and the friendly inhabitants they were going to meet. But he happened to be wrong, this time like so many others before.

The sky was orange and the grass on the hills dark red, like blood, like fire. During a second, a flash of memories assaulted the Doctor. He didn't see the rifle pointed at him; he didn't hear Donna when she yelled his name.

The sound of thunder, and all his world turned cold.

-

After they had left Martha on Earth, Donna had insisted that they rest, even if she knew the Doctor never slept through the whole night. She saw the dark lines under his eyes, she saw how tired he was; he'd never have admitted it though.

When they stepped outside, the next day, he still looked exhausted, even if he tried to hide it behind jokes and grins, and his clothes seemed a little more crumpled, if possible. The air was fresh, the vivid colours of the alien countryside struck her, and she didn't notice that the Doctor was no longer talking.

The tiny figures up on the hill to their left caught her eyes and she shaded her face with one hand to have a better look. They were moving and they were carrying guns, she realized. And when she turned to her right, it was already too late; a second group of armed men was already too close, zeroing in on them.

Donna had always thought slow motion only happened in movies, but then she heard the loud detonation and she saw the bullet coming straight for the Doctor. She shouted, an inarticulate yell that seemed to go on forever, and the bullet struck him square in the chest. A red flower blossomed on his blue vest and he fell, eyes wide open in shock, as if he was gazing at something else, something much farther, up in the reddish sky.

-

Her hands were covered in blood, and they left angry smears everywhere in the TARDIS, on the door, on the floor, where she laid him. He was still breathing, a miracle, and his eyes were still open, but he wasn't listening to her, he wasn't fighting, he kept watching some ghosts only he could see.

"Oi, oi, I've got you! Hang on!" Donna comforted. She quickly stripped of her jacket and used it to tamper the blood loss. So much blood, she thought. She wanted to cry and the tears twinkled in her eyes. "You're gonna be all right," her mouth was saying, and she pushed with both hands just above the wound. She felt the blood, slowly seeping through her fingers.

He was dying, she thought, and instead of breaking into tears, she shouted: "Just regenerate, okay! You'll be fine, I'm with you!"

He shot her a strange look, his eyes blood-rimmed and dark, so old. He tried to speak but coughed blood instead. It gurgled as if he was drowning. "What…" It was barely a whisper and Donna had to lean forward to catch the end. "What is worth fighting it for?"

"You're giving up?" She straightened suddenly, and with the blood staining her face, she looked like a fury. "Oh don't you dare, Spaceman! Don't you dare go dying on me!"

She wanted to kiss him and to kick him in the same time; instead, she just got up, after having put his hand on her jacket. "Hold on," she said.

Think, Donna, she told herself, think; and the control room seemed to be slightly spinning. There must be a way out of this mess. Inside the ship, she was safe; inside the ship, they couldn't get them, she thought. Still she could hear bullets hitting the TARDIS sides. It made a low buzzing sound and Donna wondered if it could feel pain.

The Doctor had taught her to fly the ship, through time and space, in case he needed back up. At that time, she had only considered it as a joke, a game, and he probably wasn't serious either. Now, in front of the large panel of levers, control sticks and other strange tools, she felt panic rising. Even the hammer was necessary, he had told her. What could she do with a damn hammer; she took it in one hand, just in case. She needed to concentrate, to remember, and soon he would be just as fine as before.

-

Martha had just come back home, keys in hand, thinking about what she would have for dinner. She grabbed the phone to call Tom, tell him she missed him. The house was silent and dark, so when the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS began to ring in her hears, there was no way she could just have imagined it.

He was coming back, nearly two months after he saved the Earth, again. Confused thoughts raced through her mind as the blue box slowly materialized itself in her living room. Something terrible was about to happen, but wouldn't she have heard of it?

The TARDIS was now fully present, between the TV set and the veranda; when the door opened, Martha was rather confused to see only Donna. "Where is…" She intended to say, "the Doctor", but all wonder melted as she saw the dried blood caking Donna's hands, and the wild look burning in her eyes.

"Only you can save him, Martha." Her eyes were pleading now, and the young doctor felt helpless, but she gathered her wits and asked for her wallet.

"In the corridor," she said as she entered the ship. Her indications were vague, but she couldn't get her eyes off the Doctor, one hand on the wound and the other checking his pulse. Steady, still strong, according to what she had learned, but she knew that the Doctor's usually beat twice faster. Slowly sinking, slowly dying.

-

The little scissors quickly cut the front of the Doctor's blue jacket, then his shirt, so that Martha had access to the wound. Donna wished she could have turned her eyes away from it. The rapid movements of Martha's hands amazed her. The young woman wasn't shaking at all when she approached a pair of metal tongs and deftly removed the small bullet fragments.

The Doctor hadn't stirred during the whole process. It was highly unnerving to see him so silent and unmoving, lying on the sofa of the living room. His breathing was shallow and uneven by now; it made a wet sound. Martha turned to throw a dark look at Donna.

"I think his right lung has collapsed. I can't treat him as I should, here, I can't… There is…"

"It's alright. He'll get over that. I know he can. I mean, he's not human, is he?" said Donna with a sob in her voice.

While she talked, Martha dressed the wound with a plastic patch; the air could get out of the lung but wouldn't enter it again.

"He has lost a fair amount of blood, even for him; I can't stitch the wound yet, not without inserting a drain in, and I don't have the appropriate instruments…"

Martha was babbling away in her medical jargon and Donna understood it was a way to protect herself. The injury of a friend wouldn't touch the doctor in her.

-

About an hour later, the Doctor hadn't shown any signs of waking yet. At least he was breathing properly now. Almost properly, Martha corrected, as she was twitching each time her ear caught a glitch in the small hissing noise filling the silence, entering her mind. It was maddening. Donna had left the room to clean herself up as best as she could, and Martha knew she was as shocked as she was; probably even more, considering she was present when it had happened.

She hadn't heard the whole story, but it had been easy to fill in the blanks. This time the Doctor hadn't been as lucky as always. She guessed everyone was supposed to run out of luck one day. That was all it was; bad luck. He needed some rest and soon he would be as good as new. Deep down in her mind, however, she knew she was lying to herself.

-

It was nearly dawn by now, and in the poorly lit room, the Doctor looked almost like a corpse waiting to be buried, lying flat on his back, with his still hands on his stomach. His features were peaceful now, but his sticky hair and the paleness of his cheeks betrayed his condition. A ghost of himself, mused Donna, playing with her fingers, waiting for something to happen. Martha came back into the living room with two cups of coffee. She held one to Donna with a gloomy expression.

There was something Donna had to ask to the young doctor, since she was a little more familiar with the Time Lords physiology. She wasn't sure she would be able to face the answer, though.

"So, um, either he fights to stay alive… or he dies and regenerates, is that so?"

"There's a third possibility…" Martha began, after a long silence. She seemed embarrassed to talk about that, even ashamed, as she threw a look to the prone form of the Doctor on her couch. Then, as if to free herself from a secret, she told Donna everything she had witnessed; she told her about the death of the Master, the only other Time Lord left in the universe. She told her how he deliberately chose to die, instead of regenerating.

Donna kept silent, but in her mind, thoughts were frantic; this couldn't be happening. In the same time, she remembered the Doctor's last words, before he passed out, on the floor of the TARDIS. The urge to slap him across the face became as strong as her need to see him wake up. Why couldn't he care about her enough to go on living? She wondered confusedly, feeling guilty for being so upset about that. She felt betrayed and useless.

-

When the Doctor came around, the first thing he noticed was coldness. He was never cold; two hearts warming his body plus two winged shoes were usually enough. Cold, pain, darkness. Maybe he deserved it, he who brought disaster everywhere he went. No, that was unfair, he thought, untrue. He remembered in a haze that he had something to do, something that was very important.

He tried to speak but his tongue felt swollen and dry; he tried to move but his whole body seemed to be pinned down. His mind was screaming for help, had they left him, was he alone, alone forever? If he had had some control on his body, he would have cried.

Usually, he tried not to ponder too much about feelings, signs, destiny, and everything human life was based on. He saw much farther than any of them; it was a burden, sometimes, but it was his life. He had to be alone, while everything kept dying and renewing around him. If he died, it wouldn't really matter, the universe wouldn't collapse.

He must have managed to turn his head to one side, because he was now seeing something. A rectangle of light, in the darkness of this place, a TV screen, he realized, showing only static. It was nearly upside down, or maybe only his head was. He discerned a silhouette, formed by the grey dots, entwined in the moving lines, a face. He tried to get closer, to see who it was; he felt something being ripped from the back of his hand, adding some new pain to an already long list of suffering.

He fell off the couch, trying to escape the darkness and the strong hands that were trying to hold him back. Then he was close enough to see. Some would have called it a revelation, or maybe his subconscious was trying to reach him and bring him back to the land of the living, maybe he was just delusional. For a little moment that seemed to go on forever, he really didn't care.

Someone turned on the lights and brightness made him want to crawl away. Donna's hands were on him, trying to help him. Her eyes were red and puffy with crying, but hell, he thought, she was always crying. He told her so and she didn't look very happy. Lifting his head, he saw Martha, black as a shadow, leaning against the doorframe, looking at him with an unreadable face.

-

Nothing had been said out loud, but they all knew what it had looked like. Maybe it was better not to speak about it and to go on living with a smile, as always. Martha was bandaging his hand, where he had tore the perfusion.

"How long…" he began.

"You've been out for nearly two days," the young doctor said, without raising her eyes up.

"And you haven't thought to switch on the telly before?"

"What?"

"Nothing, forget it."

"What made you, um, change your mind?" Martha asked.

"You promise you won't get upset about it?"

Martha stayed silent, her eyes never leaving the Doctor's face.

"Rose," he just said softly. "I think I saw her, when I was…" A dismissive hand waved the memory away.

"Don't say that to Donna," said Martha with a smile, "she'll be jealous."

With his eyes cheerful, the Doctor answered that he didn't believe Donna thought that way, that she was too much independent and strong for that -- always the same old song.

"I think she cares about you more than you think," was all Martha said.

Later the same day, after the Doctor had been all stitched up and fed, they were about to leave; Martha knew he couldn't stand staying too long in the same place and time, even when recovering from a fatal injury.

"I'm going to sleep for a month," he said, stretching like a cat, lost in the borrowed shirt Martha had given him. "You fly the ship, Donna" he added nonchalantly, and Martha knew the TARDIS was probably going to stay a little longer in her living room, as she heard Donna's anxious call when she followed the Doctor inside.

-

The End

-

_A/N_: Did you like it? Or not?  
Feel free to drop a line and explain why, that would make my day...

_Edit_ : sorry for reposting it, corrections to make.


End file.
